While replacing living room computer for streaming I ended up with a box with pre-installed #Windows 11. It was my first time with this operating system and I was curious so I decided to see how would it work for this role: stream a few services to connected TV and access Samba shares from local NAS.

After spending almost 4 hours on this tasks I ended up disgusted and horrified, eventually installing #Fedora. What follows is what I found out in this short time.

First of all, default install is utterly bloated with crap you will never need, and some of it you can't even uninstall, like Microsoft Edge browser, Xbox integration, Microsoft's storage solution that loves to send notifications, etc. I know there are hacks for Edge, but system update always brings it back.

And don't even get me started on ads! For example, the first thing I saw when I started the computer was ugly face of the politician I really don't like staring me from news widget. I don't want to get slapped by news when I don't ask for it. Why, oh why, is this a default in any operating system? Mind you, some other photos from news feed are equally bad, and this is unacceptable for living room computer in a family with little kids. Luckily, one can easily disable that awful widget thing.

Finally, and this is the straw that broke the back, you really can't change Windows system language after the install. This was official and activated Windows 11 Pro installation, not a single language Home version, but yet all attempts to change the system language would fail. We are a family that uses four languages at home, and this operating system can simply not support us.

The photo above is result of trying to switch to English language using only available settings, not poking the registry or other hidden buttons. Good work on UI.

Things like this, from annoying ones to the utter stupidity, are the real reason people switch back to Windows 10. Maybe I would do that too in this case, but OEM licenses for it can not be purchased anymore, and I don't want to be stuck in this dead-end environment anymore.

Final goodbye to the Windows, this home is now (almost) Microsoft free.

Update: I had to revert back to Windows 10, since Ryzen 5 integrated graphics is relatively unsupported in Linux and requires frequent reboots in order for it to recognize it is attached to video output.